would see either of you again — after what happened …’
But he could not finish, as suddenly the tears began to brim over.
‘What about the others?’ I asked, glancing back up the path in search of more of our conroi. ‘Are any of the others behind you? Mauger, Ivo, Hedo?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘I don’t know.’
‘And Lord Robert?’ said Wace. ‘What about Lord Robert?’
Eudo simply stared at him, and then at me, open-mouthed. Dark shadows lay beneath his eyes. A cloud came across the sun; from the north the wind blew and around us I heard the trees themselves shiver.
‘Lord Robert …’ he said. His voice trembled, seeming suddenly distant, as if it were no longer his own. ‘Lord Robert is dead.’
Five
I stared at Eudo, scarce understanding what he was saying. It could not be true. I had been with Robert in the square at Dunholm only hours before. I had spoken to him. I had clasped his hand.
The pictures whirled through my mind. It seemed to me I was stuck in some terror of a dream, and I needed desperately to wake up, but of course I could not.
First Oswynn, and now Lord Robert. The man I had served half my lifetime: since I had first taken up arms in my youth. I remembered that look of unspoken despair on his face as he had sent me from the square at Dunholm. And I saw again those eyes, hollow and lost, as if he had somehow known that defeat was at hand, that his own end was near.
I would have liked to say that the words stuck in my throat, but that would have been false, for in truth no words existed for a moment like this. My mouth was dry, the air gone from my chest. I felt myself sit down upon the ground, though I did not recall having willed my body to do so. I expected tears to follow, but strangely they did not, nor could I summon them. Instead I just felt numb. It was too much to take in.
I had sworn my life to Lord Robert’s service. By solemn oath I had pledged both my sword and my shield in his defence. Still I remembered that spring morning at Commines many years ago: clear and warm it had been, with the blossom on the apple trees in the orchard and the smell of earth on the breeze. It was on that morning that I’d made my pledge and he had accepted me as one of his household knights: taken me, as he had taken Eudo and Wace not long before, into his conroi, his closest circle of men. And now that pledge lay in tatters; the oath that I had sworn to him was broken. I had not been there to protect him, and now he lay dead.
Wace’s head was buried in his hands, his face red, weeping, while Eudo sat upon a rock, staring in silence down at the ground. I could not recall having ever seen either of them like this before.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘What does it matter?’ Wace said, and amidst his tears there was anger in his eyes.
‘I want to know,’ I replied.
Eudo wiped a hand across his face. ‘I only saw from a distance,’ he said. ‘You remember I became separated from you?’
I did. In fact, the last I had seen of him was when we had cut down the thegn with the gilded sword. After that everything had been thrown into confusion. I no longer remembered who had been with me when we came to Wace’s aid, only that that was when the battle had turned against us.
‘I didn’t know where you were,’ Eudo went on, ‘but I heard the horns sounding the retreat from the square, saw our banners heading back towards the stronghold. The English were pressing up the hill; there was fighting in every street. I joined with another conroi and we tried to push through to rejoin the rest of the army, but the enemy were too many and it was all we could do to hold them back.’
He turned his head down towards the earth, his eyes closed. ‘I looked up to the fastness and saw the hawk banner being pushed back. The English had broken through the gates. They had Robert all but surrounded, with the mead-hall at his rear. He retreated inside — it was the only place left to go …’
He covered his face with his hands, and I saw him tremble.
‘What?’ I asked.
He glanced at Wace, and then at me, his eyes full of apology. ‘Then they set the torch to it. The building went up so quickly; he could not have got out.’ He bowed his head again. ‘After that I fled. Men were dying everywhere; the English had won. There was nothing left to fight for.’
That was when I recalled that I too had seen the mead-hall in flames, the blaze sweeping through its thatch, the smoke rising thick and black. I had not thought anything of it at the time; that Lord Robert could have been there had not crossed my mind. But then Eudo must have had better sight of it. He had seen it all happen, and yet been powerless to do anything to stop it.
How much longer we stayed there I did not know. Nothing more was said as each of us sat, heads turned down, lost in his own grief. Above, the skies were growing grey and dark. It looked as though more rain was to come.
‘Come on,’ Wace said eventually, rising. ‘Let’s get away from the path.’
We led Eudo with his mount back to where we had tied our horses. I gestured for him to go ahead of me and struggled on behind. My leg was agony to walk on: already it seemed worse than when I had woken.
‘You’re wounded,’ Eudo said, when he saw that I was limping. He glanced down at my calf, at my blood- stained braies and the crude bandage I had made.
‘It’s not bad,’ I said, grimacing despite myself. ‘I’ll be fine until we can get back to Eoferwic.’
I saw the doubt in his eyes, but he said nothing. We settled down behind the earth bank close to our horses. Eudo found some nuts and damp bread which he had in his cloak pocket and we shared them out. It was the only food any of us had.
‘We should shelter through the day, travel by night,’ Wace said, when we had all finished. ‘If the enemy are still marching, we’re less likely to be spotted that way.’
I nodded in agreement. With any luck we would be in Eoferwic within a couple of nights. I only hoped that my wound did not get any worse in that time.
After that, each of us took it in turns to keep watch while the others slept. Since I had already rested some that morning, I offered to go first, and neither Eudo nor Wace objected. My eyes stabbed with heaviness but I knew I could not sleep, for fear of what my dreams might bring.
I thought back to the day I had met Lord Robert, when he had been as old as I was now, and I was but a boy in my fourteenth summer. It had not been all that long since I had left the monastery — a few days at most — and I was travelling I did not know where, free but hungry, walking alone. All I knew was that I wanted never to return.
Already it had been a hot summer, I remembered, though it was still only June. I had not found a spring in more than a day and all the streams were dry to their beds. Where I could, I had kept to the woods, since there I was protected from the heat of the sun; but as evening drew on I suddenly came upon a winding river: a river I later learnt was the Cosnonis, which marked the boundary between Brittany and Normandy. Between its banks and the edge of the woods a number of tents had been erected around a campfire, beside which half a dozen men were practising with swords and shields, stepping deftly forward and back in time with every stroke, ducking and turning before thrusting again.
Their blades flashed brightly in the late sun; the scrape of steel against steel rang out as they clashed. I crouched behind a bush and for a while I simply watched them, almost forgetting my thirst and my empty stomach. I had never seen such a thing before. It was like a dance: each movement, each swing, each parry all carefully considered and yet it seemed at the same time instinctive.
Eventually, though, my hunger had got the better of me, and I realised that if these men meant to stay the night here, they must have food. I moved back amongst the trees, around the back of their camp. There were more men sitting by the fire, passing bread around and speaking in what sounded like French, a tongue which at that time I only half knew. All had beards and wore their hair long, which took me aback a little, having spent so long in the company of monks, with their tonsured heads and clean-shaven chins. One of them was dressed in a mail coat, polished and gleaming, and had silver rings on his fingers. He must be their lord, I thought. His shield he had across
